UC Davis

In this paper, we present mesh-independent modeling of discontinuous fields on polygonal and quadtree finite element meshes. This approach falls within the class of extended and generalized finite element methods, where the partition of unity framework is used to introduce additional (enrichment) functions within the classical displacement-based finite element approximation. For crack modeling, a discontinuous function and the two-dimensional asymptotic crack-tip fields are used as enrichment functions. Linearly complete partition of unity approximations are adopted on polygonal (convex and nonconvex elements) and quadtree meshes. Excellent agreement with reference solution results is obtained for mixed-mode stress intensity factors on benchmark crack problems, and crack growth simulations without remeshing are conducted on polygonal and quadtree meshes to reveal the potential of the proposed techniques in computational failure mechanics. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.